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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Scene By Scene Breakdown Of ‘The Master' Cannes Footage

To say that yesterday was a big day for the site would be something of an understatement. It was the day that we and many fans have been waiting on for years, as we got our first look at the 6th film from Paul Thomas Anderson. First, we got another little note from Paul with the first teaser trailer for "The Master" (which was cut by PTA himself) and a few short hours later the reactions started pouring out of Cannes to the 4 minutes of footage at the Weinstein Co. presentation. Today, thanks to Hitfix we have a scene-by-scene rundown of the entire presentation (as if it were possible to be any more excited).

If you saw the trailer earlier today, you have some idea of what we saw,
but it was a different assembly. While the soundtrack was the same at
the beginning, with that unnerving Jonny Greenwood score and the
interview between the Army official and Joaquin Phoenix, the images
themselves were different. We saw Phoenix standing in a hallway,
writing on a piece of paper affixed to a corkboard. As the interview
reached its end, the camera pushed forward so we could read the very
short and direct note: "Gone to China," and then his signature.

We saw the same footage of the fight on the beach, the footage of him
drinking the alcohol that looks like it's coming from a torpedo, and
then the close-up of him sitting across from the guy that's interviewing
him. "What happened? Sir?"

"Let's just see if we can't help you remember what happened."

Then began new footage. Joaquin Phoenix running across a field,
afraid. Him on a boat, walking along a deck at night. And then his
first encounter with Philip Seymour Hoffman. He asks Hoffman, "What do
you do?"

"I do many many things. I am a doctor, a writer, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man."

We see Hoffman onstage, addressing a group. "I'd like to talk to you
today about cold feet and narrow minds. People who have cold feet
cannot move forward. People who have narrow minds cannot move side to
side. They both take courage. This is what I'd like to talk about."

Then Amy Adams is introduced, and she's got a crazy intensity, even in
these short clips, that practically radiates off the screen. "This
exercise will help you with your concentration. Look at my eyes. I
want you to place something in the future for yourself that you would
like to have. It's there, waiting for you."

Then it's back to Hoffman and Phoenix, sitting across from each other in
some intense encounter, Hoffman challenging him. "Say your name."

Phoenix sounds hesitant in his response. "Freddie Crock."

"Say it again."

Louder this time. "Freddie Crock."

"Might as well say it one more time, just to make sure you know who you are."

"Freddie Crock."

We see a group of people shooting on the beach, Phoenix among them, and
then we see Adams confronting Hoffman, almost in tears. "And this is
where we are at," she says. "At the lowest level. To have to explain
ourselves. For what? For what we do, we have to grovel. The only way
to defend ourselves is to attack. If we don't do that, we will lose
every battle we are engaged in. We will never dominate our environment
the way we should unless we attack."

Now we appear to be jumping scene to scene, moment to moment. It's just
impressions. Adams laughing, out of control. "It's a grim joke."

Hoffman groans. "I was thoughtless in my remarks."

As the scenes cut from one to the next, we keep returning to a haunting
image of Phoenix, framed in a window, punching himself in the head.
Fast.

Hoffman accuses him. "You linger in bus stations for pleasure."
Another shot of Phoenix, punching faster now. Back to Hoffman. "Is
your life a struggle?" Punching faster and faster. "Is your behavior
erratic? Are you unpredictable?" Phoenix, sitting across from Hoffman,
farts loudly and begins to laugh as Hoffman recoils. "What a horrible
young man you are."

It seems like they're picking at him, breaking him down. "You're a dirty animal who eats its own feces when it's hungry."

We see them meeting, talking about Phoenix. Amy Adams in particular
doesn't seem to trust him. "I wonder how he got here and what he's
after. Is it really all so easy that he just came across us? He's
dangerous and he will be our undoing if we continue to have him here."

Hoffman's not convinced, though. "If we are not helping him, then it is we who have failed him… is it not?"

Adams is the last one to speak as the title comes up. "The Master."
Simple white letters on a black background. "Perhaps he's past help.
Or insane." And the Greenwood score ends on a lone violin, mournful.
It was a dizzying piece of footage, and much of it was just close-ups
against stark black backgrounds, these great actors and their faces and
nothing else. It certainly made me eager to see what PTA has been up
to, and it also pretty much confirms any report that tied the film to
the origins of Scientology. While they may not be doing a straight
biopic of L. Ron Hubbard, if you're familiar with his life, it would be
impossible not to see him and his wife and the early followers in what
we saw tonight.

Head over to the site to read more. (via xixax) According to Harvey Weinstein, the film is "nearly finished" which would
indicate that the pics Paul sent us last week were not archival. (via Deadline)

Check out the photos from the teaser in our Facebook gallery and stay tuned to Twitter for the latest news and updates.

3 comments:

I feel like this is the key line in the trailer: "He's dangerous and he will be our undoing if we continue to have him here."

This is a horror film (perhaps with a touch of film noir) ... The "cult" leaders bring a ticking time bomb into their mix, blinded by their own ambitions and master plans, and while he becomes their henchman for awhile, he ultimately turns on them and brings everything tumbling down, probably in a violent, cataclysmic way that is nothing like Hubbard himself ever experienced. PTA has a track record of everything coming to a boil and then a spasm of violence at the end.